‘Brings the bowlers back into the game’ – Mitchell Starc calls for major overhaul in ODIs

Australia’s pace spearhead Mitchell Starc has called for a major change in ODIs, to “bring the bowlers back into the batter’s game”.

While talking to reporters on Monday ahead of Australia’s World Cup semifinal clash against South Africa, Starc voiced his opinion on the rule of playing with two new balls from both ends in ODI cricket and mentioned that “it should be one ball not two”.

“I still think it should be one ball not two,” Starc told reporters on Monday. The ball stays harder for longer. As we’ve seen here, the grounds are quite small, wickets are flat,” told Starc.

Starc pointed out how pacers prior to the rule change got the ball to reverse at the death and the contest between bat and ball remained even.

“If anything in world cricket wickets have gotten flatter and I think if you look at some of that old footage when they bowled with one ball, reverse swing comes into it a lot more that actually brings the bowlers back into the game, and I don’t think it’s any secret that one day cricket and probably T20 cricket as well is a batter’s game and bowlers just have to hang on,” he added.

The 33-year-old speedster also opened up on his performance in the ongoing tournament and compared it with how he delivered in the 2015 and 2019 ODI World Cups.

“I think there’s a lot of contributing factors, speed’s not the be all and end all over here in India as well.

“So certainly how you go about it (bowling) tactically and whether it’s variations or what time you bowl through a game or whether you win or lose a toss. I think a lot of things contribute to that and certainly haven’t been probably at the level that I would have liked as well.

“So I certainly take some (responsibility) myself there that (I haven’t bowled) to the same level as the last two World Cups anyway, but now have chance at the pointy end to I guess impact again,” he concluded.

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